Yoshi's neglect in Smash should concern you more than it does. I would think that he'd be shown a lot more care and respect if the developers know that his fans are TRULY passionate and doesn't just roll with the wind every time he gets sidelined. I WANT to think that the reason he's kept under wraps is to rework him to be more viable (like they promised last time) but I fear that's not gonna happen because Sakurai doesn't catch wind of the passion of his fans. If Yoshi ends up not living up to those expectations and you, Yosher, are okay with that, that's your perogative (the "Way of the Yoshi" as you put it at one point). But I see it as a vicious cycle
Y'know, in the end, it's just a video game dude. The developers are giving it their all to deliver a quality product. Again, I would absolutely love to see Yoshi get more attention. I really, really would. Heck, I was really upset when the only way he appeared in Smash Wii U's intro was when he got beaten up (not helped by the fact that he didn't appear in any of the newcomer videos). That felt really disrespectful. But it's still just a game.
Aside from that, EVERY character has their share of fans. Some more than others. And truthfully, Yoshi just so happens to be one of the least popular characters in Smash. Because he just doesn't really stand out to a lot of people. Of the original 8, he seems to be the most easily replaced by a lot of people. I mean.. Mario's popularity should be obvious, DK is badass and is a pretty important gaming icon, Link is the OG swordsman and the main character from the highly popular Zelda series, Samus is the OG female, sexy and badass, Fox has Smash popularity solely for the fact of how good he's been in some entries, Kirby is Sakurai's baby and represents his own fairly popular series, and Pikachu is... well.. Pokémon's mascot, and I don't think I have to explain Pokémon's popularity. All of these characters were also fairly easy to play in the original game, due to fairly standard jumping abilities as well as a proper up-B recovery.
Yoshi, on that note, represents just his own side-series of games that aren't quite as popular as most of the other original 8 character's franchises, and he has a very awkward playstyle compared to them as well and really doesn't shine through with how good he is in any of the games. To many people, he's just.. kinda there. They don't necessarily hate Yoshi, but they don't particularly care for him either. Yoshi doesn't spark much hype for the majority of the Smash Bros community. And the Smash development team knows this. Ergo, they don't give him very much priority when it comes to these things, because sadly, he really is the most forgettable of the original 8.
I really, really wish it was different as well, but I just try not to let it bother me too much. It still does, mind you, but that's when I think about what Yoshi himself would think of it, making me come to the conclusion that really, he'd just be happy to be part of the fray in the first place, because that's just the type of guy he is. I mean, just look at him when he loses in Smash. Have you seen that adorable mug of his while he's there, clapping? He still looks really happy just to congratulate the opponent! He's not a sore loser type of guy. And frankly, that's what I try to be like as well. Just to be happy to have my favourite thing be represented, and to not be too upset when this thing happens to get sidelined, no matter how much I'd love for this thing to get more attention and love. Ergo, 'the Way of the Yoshi'.
Whatever the case, Yoshi will still be in the final product, so getting upset that he's not in the demo is kind of... pointless, honestly. Sure, it gives us Yoshi fans less to look at and analyze right now, but is that really such a bad thing? To quote Delta-cod in the Yoshi Social thread, ''if no news about Yoshi comes out before the game releases we can go in completely blind and really enjoy exploring, rather than having the actual game release be kinda meh because we already know everything.'' And I completely agree with this, fun as it would be to be able to pick apart every little bit of Yoshi footage if he were playable in the demo. Besides... there's worse things going on in the world than your favourite fictional character not being playable in a
demo of all things. A demo that many of us don't even get to play in the first place.
So, tl;dr: no, I do not agree that Yoshi's neglect in Smash should concern me more. Yes, I love Yoshi. Yes, he's my favourite video game character, both in- and outside of Smash. Yes, I'd love more Yoshi representation in Smash, and for Yoshi to be a better character overall. But it's still just a video game. At the end of the day, I'm really just glad he's in Smash Bros at all and actually being part of the Original 8 means he has little to no chance of ever being cut, even if he and his franchise tend to get sidelined. Besides, it's way too early to say how much Yoshi will actually be represented in this game. You also have to keep in mind that, during Smash 4's, the latest Yoshi game had been released many years ago. Sure, Yoshi's New Island came out, but Smash was already fairly far in development at that time, and New Island wasn't even that good or popular of a game, and the same could somewhat be said for Yoshi's Island DS (even if it was still much better than New Island), which was the most recent game before New Island, which, again, came out way before this time. We were lucky that Woolly World was also in development at the time. And now, things are looking more positively; Yoshi's Woolly World is still fairly recent, and it's a great game to boot, AND Yoshi has yet another game on the horizon. So please,
calm your eggs, and wait to see what the development team has in store for us Yoshi fans in the final product. And if he ends up not being improved, just keep in mind how many characters there actually are in this game. Balancing a character roster of this size is hard work, and they have other things on their mind than making one particular character more viable, especially when he never was outright terrible to begin with.